


past lives

by cygnes



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, True Detective
Genre: Alternate Timelines, F/M, mentions of the death of a child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-15 19:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1317256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cygnes/pseuds/cygnes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marty meets Rust's ex-wife, just once, during the early days of the Lange case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	past lives

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted a few days ago on [tumblr](http://manzanas-amargas.tumblr.com/post/79218421043/fic-past-lives).
> 
> The timeline of the Hannibal TV series is shifted back a few years in order for the crossover to work. Written for my friend [sadaboutzombies](http://sadaboutzombies.tumblr.com) on tumblr, who finally got me to watch True Detective.

They’re a couple of weeks into the Dora Lange case when the woman shows up at state police headquarters. She turns heads—the rare kind of beauty that falls between high school sweetheart-pretty and matinee idol-gorgeous. Cathleen points her over toward Marty and he doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve this but he thanks God anyway.

He doesn’t deserve it, of course, so it serves him right when she stops in front of Rust instead.

"Hey," she says, soft and familiar. Rust—intense, impassive Rust—glances up at her, startled. Marty might feel bad for the man if he wasn’t so busy savoring the moment and mentally cataloging that deer-in-the-headlights look. It’ll help him deal with his frustration to remember that when Rust starts in on his bullshit philosophical lectures, which have been ocurring with alarming frequency ever since the day they found the body crowned with antlers.

"Hey," he echoes.

"I was in town for a conference," the woman says. "I looked you up. It’s been a while."

"Years," Rust agrees. He doesn’t seem inclined to say anything else.

"At least you’re in the phone book now. Better than when you fell off the face of the earth for four years," she says, and she’s still smiling, but it’s hard at the edges now. Rust frowns.

"I thought I was unlisted."

"Well, I say phone book. I mean FBI databases."

The whole situation is fucking weird, as far as Marty is concerned. He didn’t think his partner had much of a personal life to keep hidden, but Rust is full of surprises. As usual.

"Are you with the FBI?" he says, and they both look at him. Rust scowls; the woman looks politely annoyed.

"This is my partner, detective Hart," Rust says, sidestepping the need to actually explain who his visitor is or why she’s there. It’s shaping up to be some film noir femme fatale shit, which would fit well with Rust’s hard-boiled cynicism and annoying tendency to say things that sound like they were written down first.

"Call me Marty," he says, going along with it.

"Alana Bloom," the woman says. "I teach at Quantico."

“ _Doctor_ Alana Bloom,” Rust adds, slightly vicious.

"Formerly Mrs. Rustin Cohle," Dr. Bloom says pointedly. So that explains some things, but not everything.

"You never took my last name," Rust says.

"Not the point," Dr. Bloom says. Her smile turns brittle again.

"Nice to meet you," Marty says, because at least one person in this conversation should try to be civil. "What do you teach?"

"Behavioral analysis," Dr. Bloom says.

"I guess that’d be where Rust picked up his interest in the field," Marty says, trying to make small talk, but Rust just glares and Dr. Bloom looks perplexed. "Or not." He turns back to the paperwork on his desk.

"Maybe we should talk outside," Rust says, and they leave together. Dr. Bloom glances back over her shoulder at Marty as they head toward the door and murmurs something to Rust, who shakes his head.

 

—

 

Marty wanders outside a little over half an hour later and finds Rust trying to smoke his way through an entire pack of cigarettes. There must be a half-dozen butts on the ground around his feet.

"She seems nice," he says.

"Don’t," Rust warns, not looking at him.

"How’d you two meet?" Marty says. Rust’s brows draw down and together, but he answers.

"Consult when I was working in Texas. She was teaching at UT Austin and sometimes helped with profiles. Moved to Baltimore after the divorce. She’d gotten her PhD at Johns Hopkins. She had friends in the area."

"Makes sense," Marty says. He watches Rust smoke two more cigarettes, and then they go back inside together.

 

—

 

"I met Rust’s ex-wife today," Marty tells Maggie after the girls are in bed. He went home right after work tonight. He was tired, but not sharp-edged in the way that he needed Lisa to soften before he could face his family.

"What’s she like?" Maggie says. She’s curious about Rust because she thinks he’s tragic. And he is, Marty thinks, but it’s not something that particularly interests him. Some people just get dealt a shitty hand in life.

"Smart," Marty says after a moment’s consideration. "Real smart. She’s a doctor and everything. I can see why they might’ve liked each other." Just as surely as he can see how they can’t stand each other now.

"Pretty?" Maggie asks. There’s something sly in her tone. Marty shrugs.

"I guess." He slides a hand under the hem of her shirt, just letting it rest on the curve of her waist. "Not as pretty as you, of course." Maggie smiles at the old worn line and doesn’t push him away, even though he hasn’t spent a whole night at home in days.

He wonders dimly as he falls asleep what Rust was like when he was married. Whether he was happy. Whether he slept as well as dreamed.

 

—

 

Alana doesn’t talk about the fact that she was married. Talking about her marriage means talking about the daughter she lost, and that’s a wound that never really healed. Jack knows, and Hannibal knows. She never bothered telling Will—why would she? Years pass, and Hannibal finds his way into jail and then out into the wide world again. She wondered if maybe he would go after Rust just for cruelty’s sake. A final betrayal. But she never hears about it, and reconsiders. Maybe Hannibal knows better than to think she’d care.

Alana has moved again, to Chicago this time, because that’s how she deals with things. Displacement. It’s something she and Rust have in common.

She gets a call from the Lousiana state police. Rust is suspected of murder. She can’t honestly say she’s surprised, but she can honestly say that they haven’t spoken in over a decade. No, she has no idea where he was when he fell off the face of the earth (again) for eight years after quitting.

Her legs go out from under her when she sees the first news report less than a week later. It’s the worst she’s seen since she left the FBI. And more than that—

_Former detective Rustin Cohle in critical condition._

She remembers the man she married instead of the man she saw the last time they met, and she thinks about him dying. She thinks about the children whose bodies are being dug up. She thinks about Sophia.

Dr. Alana Bloom, who was never Dr. Alana Cohle only because it would have been too much trouble to change her licenses, does not visit her ex-husband. She has nothing to offer him that would be any help. Despair never did anyone any good, even if misery does love company.


End file.
